I saw this on Paul’s site, under his Democracy Blogs.

Think Public storyboard for the Argos experience

Think Public posed the question, How can we use high street service experiences to help design better public services? See Jan 7 entry on their blog for stuff on service and experience based deign projects.

Virgin Atlantic have just released a great new ad campaign in the UK to celebrate their 25th anniversary, see it on the Movement Design Bureau blog.

I’ll be speaking at the Design Management 13 conference in Milan on1-3rd April 2009. The conference website is here.

I’ll be speaking on the subject of ‘development needs for design managers during an economic downturn’ which is a bit topical when you think about it.

I’m writing my talk now, but if you have any suggestions, let me know.

Alladi Venkatesh, Kathryn Best, Frédéric F. Brunel, B. Christopher Han, Seema Khanwalkar

On November 15 2008, The Paul Merage School of Business and The Design Alliance at University of California at Irvine (USA) hosted a one-day conference on Design Innovation and Research. It was organized by Professor Alladi Venkatesh (Associate Director, CRITO), Lynda Lawrence and Raymond Pirouz, with opening remarks by Sanjay Dalal, President & Managing Director, Innovation Index Group (Creativity and Innovation Driving Business). The school focuses on sustained growth through strategic innovation, and their MBA programmes also consider how to ‘bring effective and innovative business strategies to bear on today’s most pressing and compelling social issues’.

K. Best Presentation: Design and the Wold of Business

I talked about Design and the World of Business, providing a contextual overview of the relationship between design and business, and some specific examples of how design can shape decision-making processes, help identify new opportunities, and contribute to business success.

I particularly liked Seema Khanwalkar’s presentation on Tata’s Nano, ‘the people’s car’. Seema, a semiotics expert from the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology Ahmedabad, India, framed her presentation as ‘a design story from India’. B. Christopher Han represented Stanford University’s D-School (Dept. of Management Science & Engineering) and talked about customer experience and ‘Design Higher Quality Interactions’. Norman Stolzoff (Ethnographic Insight) presented on Sustainability and ‘What Green Really Means for Design’, and Richard Harper, Principal Researcher at  Microsoft in the UK presented some of their current design research. Victor M. Gonzalez (Manchester Business School, University of Manchester) discussed ‘Design Considerations for Community Portals in Master-Planned Developments’, and considered the case of Real del Sol in Tecámac, Mexico. Summary and closing comments were by Frédéric F. Brunel, Professor at Boston University.

I am with the second years of the BA Design Management International in HSLU Lucerne (Wenjing, Anita, Claudio, Sophie, Ivana, Quentin, Angel). We have been looking at writing the first design policy for Switzerland by looking at examples of trends, globalisation, how companies and countries implement creativity, design education, emerging economies. They also did a hands on scenario design/user-centred design workshop. According to a link Anita found, “Switzerland is a will nation and not a design nation, a reality and not a logo”. Does the government think the Swiss cross is the design identity? Or is it that Switzerland is more about quality and innovation in science/R&D than in design? Ivana knows about a new nanotechnology centre associated with the ETH Zurich, and in terms of Pharmaceuticals, Claudio reminded us of companies like Novartis and Roche in the Basel area who are world famous for R&D and their products. Also, there are lots of famous architects from Switzerland (for example Herzog De Meuron) and historically many influential designers (Adrian Frutiger, Max Bill, Le Corbusier and Alfredo Haeberli who is more famous outside Switzerland).

What I found interesting is that Switzerland consists of 26 Cantons, each with their own dialects and regional differences, and there major differences between the French, Italian and Swiss-German parts, some of which we talked about. And the government is lead by a committee of 7 that is voted in. In terms of a Swiss Design Policy, the students will have to decide which of these 7 will be the key supporters to take forward any future design policy.

On the day that the first black President of the USA was elected, it can only be matched by the first post on my new Design Management blog. This site is about me and my work. Posts will be brief and to the point wherever possible. Like this one.